


Malt Shop AU

by DisorientedOwl, LateralFlexor



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Prime
Genre: 50s theme, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Awkward Flirting, Drinking, Fluff, Kissing, M/M, Malt Shop Au, Partying, Rebellious "teens", Slice of Life, Smoking
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-09
Updated: 2018-01-08
Packaged: 2019-03-02 12:46:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13318407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DisorientedOwl/pseuds/DisorientedOwl, https://archiveofourown.org/users/LateralFlexor/pseuds/LateralFlexor
Summary: "Drama is a major food group for teenage girls." - Christopher Meloni





	Malt Shop AU

**Author's Note:**

> A Transformers AU based around the 50s Earth aesthetic with chrome, outcasts, jocks, cy-garettes, and rebellious teens. A slice of life style piece with at times mature themes, but these entries are stories on Cybertron, with ambiguous timing pre-Golden Age, with familiar characters, and features a crossover of culture and language tying to human customs. 
> 
> The allusion of "underage high schoolers" as our characters does not apply here as these characters are already thousands of years old. They are called younglings which translates directly to "young Cybertronians" in this fic and though currently there are no plans for sexual situations, they are well into the age of consent. They are not below the equivalent of "18 years old" - they are older. Imagine people above Prime's Bumblebee and More Than Meets the Eye's Rodimus Primse, I suppose. My co-author and I have written this for fun and ask you to suspend your disbelief, and we thank you for your patience beforehand as this will be updated loosely!

It was nearly seven. Well… six thirty. With a curfew at eight and everything, he was beginning to lose hope that his date would even show.

Foolish. His parents were more than generous to have let him off on a school night. He was lucky to have this at all. And it still felt entirely unbelievable.

Little buttechflies soared around under his abdominal plating. It felt like one was born again with every tick of the hand over yet another number on the clock. They were starting to excite and suffocate him all with every buzz.

Any moment now, a well-built blue and red mech would be in here, asking for him. A tinny bell rung behind him and his helm snapped over his shoulder.

A thin yellow femme came in chattering with her flock. Ratchet didn’t veil his disappointment.

_Noisy cheerleaders…_

His anxiety was teetering on drying him out entirely. His glossa felt sandy, uncomfortable like when he ate slag last week on the field. Ratchet raised a servo and waved down the still eager attendant at the end of the long chrome-lined bar for another float. Once she slid it to him, he merely swirled the frothy energon puffs at the top.

Maybe that could be something to talk to Orion about. That little bookworm was always talking about branching out from social positions and whatnot. ‘Be your own self, and you can be happy,’ he’d always been heard saying. He’d said it at the assembly last month, and Ratchet would’ve laughed with everybot else had he not been thinking about how exceptionally cute he found him.

Naïve wasn’t it; innocent, perhaps, but Orion was intelligent for his career path. He didn’t only spit up what the librarian at school taught him, but he learned from it. Learned from lessons that weren’t his at all. He was always so silent to the point most people thought him eccentric. Maybe it was rose-colored optics, but Ratchet found him so charming.

Another gentle rattle of the bell. Some schmuck Slaptrap. Mousetrap? Whatever. Wasn’t the mech he wanted to see.

He took a small sip of his drink before his ped came to life, jittering under the bar top. It got to the point where his drink began to deviate. He tugged it back to him, flattening his foot to the tile floor.

“Excuse me?”

Primus, please not another one of those lame punks. If this was going to be anything like the last time-

“What do _you_ wa- oh.”

Two bright blue optics towered over him atop a lean figure. For the scholarly type, Orion sure would have done wonders as an athlete. And Ratchet would have enjoyed being put to shame.

“O-Orion, I-… Sorry, I was expecting one of those greasier- I didn’t mean to address you that way.” Ratchet’s digits encased his cup in a vice. He’d missed his entrance, his greeting. What else was he about to screw up?

Shyly, the mech turned, glancing around the half-vacated hangout. Most gatherings were on the opposite side of the room, and Ratchet had chosen the cleared bar. Silently, Orion was thankful. “Were you expecting different company? If now is not the best of times-“

Snapping his servo from his glass, Ratchet slid from his seat. Off his seat, more like. “N-no! No no, no.” _If Orion associates me with those plaster-snorting, motorhelms this date’ll be dead in the water._ Shifting on his feet below the still three-helm-taller model, Ratchet gestured with two hands to the stool beside him. “I, uh… saved you a seat.”

Meekly, the other took it, setting down a heap of datapads in the process. “I apologize for coming late. The chronometer at the library is ten minutes behind.” A few of the pads slid off one another, “What are you having?”

Ratchet’s mouth struggled to abandon the safe preoccupation with his straw. “I-, it’s. It’s only a float. The one they advertise every solar cycle at the top,” he said, pointing to the menu between them. “They call it a special but it’s here all the time.” _Make optic-contact with him, you dolt._

If Orion was bothered by the other’s gaze fixed elsewhere, he didn’t mention it. Ratchet saw two blue orbs in his peripherals. “Might I try some of yours? I don’t know if I will like it.”

The smaller student’s spark flew from his chestplate. He nodded, and that’s all he could give. He regretted the denta-marked straw now as he watched the weak thing slide around the cup’s rim during passing. Orion was unbothered still and hesitated in Ratchet’s point of view as he lowered to sip.

The blue bot hummed after letting up, “I think I’ll have one too.” Orion searched timidly, “I don’t think the waiter can see. Excuse me.”

Ratchet struggled to focus on anything other than his back, bottom half. Orion was oblivious to the multitude of other stares he collected around him as well. Sighing into his palms, Ratchet held himself steady between patience and relief at having to wait.

“I see your ‘date’ is going everything less than according to plan,” a snarky voice told him.

Swiveling his stool, the white student hadn’t the strength to frown fully. “Starscream, it isn’t that bad.”

The seeker fluffed the plume of carbonated solids in his drink. He pinched the straw between his manicured digits, “As much as you think he wants to be here, he’s making love to novels in his processor,” and sipped.

“Well I don’t see _your_ boy toy anywhere in here,” Ratchet said.

Starscream lowered a shoulder and nudged his helm back, drawing Ratchet’s attention to the indoor basketball machines in the corner. Smokescreen was in the middle of his shot, which he then made, and high-fived his cronies.

“Sorry,” was all Ratchet said.

The seeker twirled his straw and covered it with his hand modestly, “Sports are all he thinks about. I can barely get him to so much as sit on the couch with me while his parents are out.”

The other student found that hard to believe given Starscream’s trim appearance and family heritage. _Not to mention the money_ , Ratchet thought, mid-pitiful-squint. But as far as Ratchet could tell from their ‘relationship,’ Smokescreen’s helm had barely once left his aft. Perhaps all mechs felt neglect.

In his pondering, Ratchet saw the slender mech scoot from his booth and stand. “But today isn’t about me now is it, it’s about you,” he gritted impressively sweetly. Only a youngling his stature could have made it feel so rewarding. Ratchet had spied on him here before without any interactions.

Starscream pried open his wallet and left a handful of dough behind. Not a moment after, helm still buried in his own business, he set some in front of the jock by his soggy drink. Ratchet held his breath as the prep met his optics. _Hadn’t expected them to be such a bright red._

“For when he leaves you here,” he told him, and he walked away.

Had it been another situation, a youngling like that would have colored it a bribe. Maybe it was a pity parting gift, but Ratchet hadn’t enough pride to be offended. Looking back over the entire shop, he couldn’t find Orion.

“Ratchet.”

 _Oh thank Primus._ “Orion, I-“

Still standing, opposite side than before, the bookish mech pushed out his admission, “I’m sorry but I will have to be going now. I received a call from my guardians.”

Ratchet was embarrassingly stunned. It was like a play. “I understand,” he managed to lie.

“Thank you for the evening. I will see you around school,” Orion said, more hope geared towards forgiveness, Ratchet felt, than earnestness.

With Ratchet’s reserved nod, Orion took his exit, meek smile on his faceplate. The remaining student hunched in his stool, his drink expired. He shifted in his seat just before a new waitress deposited the same drink in front of him wordlessly and vanished.

Mumbling overtook his vocalizer and he herded Starscream’s money to him and counted. Starscream overshot he supposed and gave him thirteen credits instead of just the five for his float, but any extra money could be his secret, especially with how this night had played out. Starscream wouldn’t miss a few units.

Ratchet let his weight slide him off the chair and looked around- a tick he couldn’t shake. Discomforted, the white and red mech looked to Starscream’s empty table, glanced at his mutilated straw, and left.


End file.
